Father, You’ve given us more than we could ever deserve, more than we are worthy of. You’ve given us Yourself. You’ve given us Your Son and Spirit. Lord, we want to say thank You for Your great grace. Pass it over as a small thing, but something even just to celebrate one month out of the year. Lord, we ask that our whole hearts and whole selves would be enraptured in the person of Jesus and what it means that Christ came. So thank You. We pray that the presence and power of Jesus would be upon us, Lord, and Your Word would be strong within us. We pray for, Lord, tonight those who are sick, those who are struggling with one thing or another, the flu season and different things. And Lord, we just pray that You just heal. Lord, we love You. And it’s in Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.

Well, good evening. And I guess we can start saying Merry Christmas now. Yeah, Merry Christmas. Jessica, unfortunately, is at home with Vera. She’s got RSV this week. And so she’s… Well, RSV turns into an ear infection as well. So part of the fun of babies and kids, I guess. Not really, but anyways. But it’s good to be with you. It’s good to celebrate Christmas. And what that really means for us as followers of Jesus. And I think Christmas should be that. It should be something special and beyond a fun season that it is for someone in the world who just thinks it’s fun to give gifts and put up colorful things. And yeah, there’s this baby thing in the background of it. I hope it’s not that. I hope it’s the baby things in the front of it, right? Jesus came and that’s everything to us. That’s everything for us.

Matthew chapter 1, verse 21. That’s what I want to preach to you tonight. All right.

Matthew chapter 1, verse 21.

And the angel said to Joseph, she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

It’s not a what, but a who. When we think about Christmas, I think we think about what am I going to get for Christmas? Probably shamefully as a 34-year-old man, I still think, I wonder if someone is going to get me something cool and I didn’t know they’re going to get it. What am I going to get, right? It’s not a what that’s so wonderful about Christmas. It’s a who. Darcy and Dawson, they’ve started reading this Christian children’s fantasy series. And it’s also a show now called the Winged Feather Saga. And in this show, all of humanity’s been overlorded by these overgrown lizardy, uh, monsters. And, um, these monsters are trying to get their hands on these powerful jewels. Um, and they’re called the Jewels of Anira. They’re from the former kingdom from where the humans ruled. And they want to get the Jewels of Anira because they have power in them. If they can just get those, they can rule once and for all. And what they discover, what you discover by the end of the first series is the jewels are not a what, but a who. The jewels are the children. It’s the, it’s the last people of the royal family of Anira. It’s the who that’s so special. It’s the people that matter. And it’s the same. Christmas is not great because of a what, but because of a who. You and I don’t get something from God. What you and I get at Christmas time is God.

Um, Joseph’s being told about this child that his, his fiance, although they’re legally married, betrothed at this point, she’s going to have a child. And there’s no greater gift than a child. Um, even, even though as a parent could attest a hard gift a lot of times, there’s no greater gift than a baby and a child. Um, certainly that first child, you know, at the hospital and, oh my gosh, there’s this person that I had a part in. Oh my gosh, it’s such a gift. Um, and for Mary and Joseph, their first child was really something. This child came in the most mysterious, extraordinary manner because this would be the most extraordinary person ever born. And it seemed untimely for her because she was still a virgin. She had not been with Joseph. She had not been with anyone. She was a virgin. How do you have your first baby if you don’t have a husband there?

They get quite an answer on this. And I’m going to read it from Luke’s account. Luke 135.

And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow, will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. So that’s not a, that’s not an easy answer to hear, but that’s the answer. The Holy Spirit is going to come upon this virgin young woman. So I want that to be a great, wonderful mystery that you and I treasured. This Christmas season in our hearts. And we love to ponder it. God became an unborn child in the womb of a young woman. And I do think it’s significant that Jesus became an unborn child, not just a child. Because an unborn child is even more vulnerable and helpless than a born child. I mean, if you have a child, and perhaps that child’s not being cared for, babies are often rescued from bad situations. But when you have a child in the womb, it’s beyond dependent. It gets its nourishment from its mother. It’s entirely vulnerable. It can’t be seen really by anyone. It can, if you wanted to, you could do easy violence against it. People do easy violence against unborn children. That’s the vulnerable state Christ put himself in. And it wasn’t this powerful woman who would have been guarded by an army. This is a young, obscure woman. And the best of biology and the best of anatomy can never explain that. The incarnation of the Son of God.

John chapter 1, verse 14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And that is something that isn’t to be taken lightly in terms of what we believe. Because that’s something that’s been warred against and censured. This doctrine of incarnation. In the 4th century, there was a heresy known as Arianism. And Arius, their leader, he distinguished the divinity of the Father, God the Father, from the divinity of Christ the Son. By arguing Jesus was a created being. So Jesus hadn’t always been a created being. He wasn’t around. He was created first by the Father. And He was subordinate to the Father. So this Jesus is something special. He’s something great. This isn’t quite God. We can’t say God became a man. We can’t say that. But in 325, the Council of Nicaea codified it and said, No, it is true. And this is what it says in the Nicene Creed. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made, who for us men, for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. They didn’t leave any room there to get it wrong. Because if it wasn’t very God of very, if it wasn’t God, then it’s interesting, and it’s good science fiction, fantasy, but it doesn’t really hold a candle to what the Scriptures say about God becoming flesh. I don’t need some, premium, awesome, extraterrestrial space creature that God made, and He’s going to come down and try to do some good things. Because that’s not my problem. My problem is I’ve been disconnected from God. And what I need then is God. So what does Jesus do? He comes and doesn’t say, hey, I’m kind of like God, or I’m very similar to God, or I’m the next best thing from God. Jesus comes and He says, I am the great I am. Jesus comes and Jesus says, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. So I don’t need, you don’t need someone God-like. I need God Himself. And I think that’s the wonderful thing about the Incarnation, is in the Incarnation, we find in Christ, the fullness of God.

Isaiah, chapter 12, verse 2, it says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and I will not be afraid for the Lord God is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation. God’s people in the Old Testament, all throughout the prophets, all throughout their years of wandering and waiting, all throughout the years in the kingdom of Israel, they were always instructed, you hope, you trust in God alone. Nothing else. Nothing else. There’s no second tier. There’s no possible other thing coming. There’s no plan B. You only trust in God. So I’m going to take God at His word in the Old Testament. When I come to the New Testament, it has to be, if we’re going to be consistent, it’s got to be in the Incarnation, God. It’s God. Because only God can save. Hope in God alone, the psalmist says so often. So then, only Jesus gets to carry the name Jesus.

Joseph is a good man, a just man. He doesn’t drag Mary through the streets. Hey, she’s pregnant, y’all. She obviously cheated on me. He’s going to divorce her quietly. But it doesn’t happen. The angel says, hey, don’t do that. This is from the Holy Spirit. It’s going to be a son. And I’m not even going to give you the name. You don’t think about a name. The name is Jesus. The name’s Jesus. And that’s not random, if you’ve ever wondered why it was Jesus. Jesus, to quote John MacArthur, Jesus is the Hebrew form of Joshua. The basic meaning, which is, Yahweh will save. That’s what Jesus means. All other men who had those names, and a lot of people would have had that name. It’s a common name. Testified by their name to the Lord’s salvation. But this one who would be born to Mary would not only testify to God’s salvation, but would himself be that salvation.

Jesus’s name literally means salvation for God’s people. God saves. It’s in his name. You think about Joshua from the Old Testament. Who is Joshua? Joshua was a great leader and savior for God’s people when Moses passed away. It was Joshua who actually led God’s people to conquer Canaan and to defeat all of the Canaanites and to, for the first time, establish the boundaries of national Israel. But as you know, that was short-lived. Joshua died. The people died. The country was overrun. Eventually he perished and it all went away. But this Jesus, this, the salvation he will bring is everlasting because he himself is everlasting. Even before time and ages past did this Joshua have an eternal plan of salvation in mind. And his victory is sure because as the God-man, none can stand against him. And if it was God incarnate, if it was God incarnate, it means God has come near to you. God showed up to be near and close to us. God didn’t send an errand boy. He did that a lot of times. He would send angels and messengers. But for this, God sent his son who was very God of very God. In a world covered in spiritual darkness, the Father sent the light and the light was the light of God. The light of Christ. It’s God in the flesh.

So I want you to treasure that in your heart as the scriptures say, Mary treasured all those things in her heart. What do I do when I’m told God wants to be near me? I treasure it in my heart. I ponder at the great mystery of grace. Isn’t this grace? Isn’t this the gospel that God would come near? The one whose name is salvation has come in the flesh, savior of my soul?

J.I. Packer

has said the almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this. This is the greatest truth of the incarnation.

George W. Bush in an interview long after his presidency and even I think in his memoir, he mentions Katrina as one of the greatest failures of his presidency. And the reason why is because at the time he chose not to touch down in New Orleans and see the people and talk to the people. There’s this picture, and you can find it anywhere, there’s this picture of him kind of just looking carelessly out the window of an airplane down at the situation. And he really got taken to task for it. And he said, I should have just taken the time and touched down and let the people know I care. And you contrast that with 9-11 when there’s that very famous video on YouTube, it’s about a minute and a half, of George W. Bush standing there with all the, you know, firefighters and he’s encouraging the people and the megaphone’s not loud enough and someone in the crowd yells out to George W. Bush, we can’t hear you. And he yells back, well, I can hear you. And the whole world hears you. There’s something different when the top guy is present. You know? You feel loved. You feel cared about. I want you, deep in your soul, and I’m preaching this to myself, wherever you are in life, whatever trial and struggle you’re going through, you need to believe, if you believe in the incarnation, that God, is right here with you. God stepped out of the everlasting to be present with you. God deeply cares about you. And we’re really good at telling ourselves that’s not the case. But if I conform my mind to the Word of God, the Word of God says God deeply loves me and cares about me and He’s for me. And He’s shining a light to show me the way to go. He’s a helper in my hardest task. Can you let the incarnation push you over the edge, past the line, all doubts, and believe God is with me. In Christ, the great I am cares for you, loves you, knows you, helps you, sets you on the right path of life and salvation. God is with you. For His name is Jesus God saves.

Jesus’ name is salvation. Jesus’ life is the means of salvation. His name is salvation. Joshua, Jesus. But His life is the means of salvation. The angel says call His name Jesus for here’s the reason why He will save His people from their sins. If Jesus is the Savior the question is what’s He saving from? Or in another direction, what am I captive unto? If you were to ask Jewish people that of Jesus’ time, what do you want a Savior for? And you’re like deep down in your bones, why do you need a Savior for as a country, as Jewish people? What is it? Why do you need the Messiah? You would get a majority answer, we hate Rome. Liberation from the man. His tyranny, His overlording, His taxing us. We’re God’s chosen people. We’re waiting for that great shining city to be again. We know that our Messiah will come and crush our enemies. And there’s some truth in that. There’s some truth in that. But that’s a superficial answer and it’s a selfish answer, really.

And if you were to ask someone today, hey, why does the world, why do people need Jesus? What kind of answer would you get about the need for Christ? I think you would get, well, He’s a great moral example for all of us. Really shows us how to live right. He really shows us what it looks like to resist aggression, nonviolence, you know. I think you would get, Jesus teaches us to accept one another. Accept one another. Love each other. You would probably hear something mixed in with, like, modern, like, you know, self-help mumbo-jumbo of centering. We’re centering. You know, when I think about Jesus, I’m just kind of, whew, I’m just brought to a calm in an inside place. And the truth is that there’s a great chain of truth in each of those things, but they fail to answer the full and actual question. Because the full and actual answer is sin.

And if we look at this word in its tense, in the original language, it’s not really just sin, it’s sinfulness. It’s what y’all are. It’s not what you do, it’s what you are. So blow number one, you don’t just do outward acts that are wrong against God. Blow number two, you do them because you are wrong and against God. You are sinful. That little verse, that three-little-letter word tells me plainly, in a very raw fashion, I need to be saved from myself.

So His name’s salvation because His life is the means of salvation, what? For sinners. That’s why Christ came. And Paul says it so plainly in 1 Timothy. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners. Of whom I, Paul says, am the foremost. So if I want Jesus for something else, I won’t find Him to be that thing. If I want the actual true, biblical, Christmastime Jesus, if I want Him, if I want this Jesus, I’m going to find that there’s a whole slew of things that my sinful flesh wants that He’s not come to address. The truth of the matter is Jesus hasn’t come to fix, modify, and prove something about my life. Jesus is so good, He came so that I would not live out my life. So that I would not live out my idea of the good life. Jesus came to save me from myself and who I am so that I can have a whole new brand new life in Him. Because only Jesus is good. Only Jesus does good. So I can’t be modestly, modified and fixed and bandaged up to be something better. No, no, no, no, no, no. Jesus came so that I could be killed, crucified, but brought to a brand new life. I have been, Paul says, crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, it’s Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Only Jesus is good. Only Jesus does good. So if I’m not in Christ, I’m not good and I don’t do good. The Hebrew writer, I think, spells it out beautifully.

And I think I missed my copy and paste for that one, so I’ll have to physically, well, I won’t for time’s sake do it, but the Hebrew writer spells out Jesus is the great high priest because He didn’t offer something else besides Himself. Jesus, it says, He partook of flesh and blood and taking of that flesh and blood Himself, He perfected what was broken in you not, our sinfulness, and He offered that up to God. So Jesus, once and for all, paid for our sinfulness in His flesh. He was pure and perfect where we’re not. So see, His holiness and His perfection, it can’t be attained in any other way than being in Him. Jesus calls us to, and this is what He tells Nicodemus, right? When Nicodemus comes and asks His questions, Jesus says, you must be reborn. You’ve got to become someone else completely in Jesus. Alive in Jesus, I’m considered good and I can do good in Christ. Alone, made one with Christ, joined to Christ, like a vine or a branch gets its nourishment from the trunk. And I think that is, and I want you to think about this, because I think Christmas blows a hole in religion and world religions, right? Because what is essentially every cult and every world religion? Here are the rules, here are the do’s and don’ts, and you try your darndest to obey them. And maybe you think you are, maybe you think you’re not, maybe you don’t know, you’re just hoping you do it right, you’re just hoping you’re keeping it good enough. But Christianity is completely different. Because it doesn’t have anything to do with you not trying to measure up to the stature of Christ. Christianity says you definitely would fail to measure up to the stature of Christ. No one’s perfect as the Father is perfect except this one perfect Son who does all things well. So see, in Jesus, I’m not asked to try my best and pull it off. In Jesus, I’m asked to just give it up. Hey man, you can’t do it. Trust in Jesus, who’s done it for you. He put on flesh. He was the perfect human. He defeated death. He defeated sin. And in Him, you find life to the fullest. So yes, in Jesus, I find a moral example, but I also find a humility to recognize my failings so that I can repent, and I also find in Christ the power to actually obey God and do different. In Jesus, I don’t just love people according to whatever that definition is for 15 different people, but I can actually love people with the love of God. In Jesus, accepting people doesn’t mean just putting a stamp of approval on their sins and vices and just saying, hey, let’s all just do what we want and not say it to each other and that’ll be okay. It teaches me that I can, you know, call sin, sin, and loving people means that I’m actually addressing sin. It doesn’t mean I take a baseball bat to their head, but it means I can stand for truth. And centering, centering, it does happen, but not for my life. It happens because Jesus is my life.

And someday Jesus will return and establish a city on a hill that will stand forever, an eternal kingdom, but not for ethnic Israel, but for all those who have been in His blood and filled with the Spirit of Christ. His name is salvation because His life means salvation. And it is a means of salvation.

What’s in a name? That’s Juliet’s famous question from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. What’s in a name? Because she can’t be with him because they’re in family feuding mode and he’s a Montague, and so he can’t, you know, she can’t be with him. And she says, if a rose is a rose, what’s it matter if you call it a rose? It still is that thing that it is, right? And we find in Christ one whose life perfectly exemplifies His name. It’s so plain, and God’s made it so plain. His name is salvation because His life is salvation. Jesus is a Savior for you. Jesus is a Savior for you. And He’s a Savior for you to the uttermost. And so I think if you think about the Incarnation and you let the Incarnation be the Incarnation, you don’t have to deal with that kind of gnawing kind of doubt that we deal with at times as Christians, like, I don’t know, I think I’ve gone too far as a sinner. I’ve gone too far. If I didn’t sin so much, maybe God could save me. Your whole framework’s bad. Go further and then go further. God’s not trying to remodel the house. He’s going to set the house on fire either way. He’s built you as a new thing into His house. So if you just change the whole religion mindset to this grace mindset, it’s not about you and how good or bad you are. It’s all got to be shipped off, never to return. It’s about turning to Jesus and seeing His perfections, trusting in His perfections, believing that when I see the goodness of Christ, that’s when the power of the Spirit changes me. He saved you to the uttermost. All who call on His name. I do think then, if I’m really seeing the Incarnation well, I’m stirred up to godly living, because I don’t think about this God-man in feet, just in uterus, and go, huh, that’s cool. I go, wow. He’s done so much so that I can be holy. He’s done so much so I can be set free from sin. That should be such a motivator for holy living, and to say, Jesus, Jesus, shape me, conform me to Your image. I don’t want to be anything less. I want to walk the walk and talk the talk. And that’s what John says in his letter, right? If we’re in Christ, what? We have fellowship in Him. We walk in Him. We walk in the light. If not, we’re lying about being in Christ.

Friend, you have sinned. Yeah. And you’re gonna sin more in badly.

But Jesus shines the light always. And He calls you to follow His way. His pathway that He has carved out. And He makes you a new thing.

And then last, share the gift. Share the gift. Share not the what, but share the who. Others need to hear about this God-man who had the humility to become so vulnerable to become a man to save sinners. So, Lord, stir me up. To obedience and sacrifice of my personal comfort or whatever that costs. To keep preaching Jesus. Keep preaching Jesus to my kids, to whoever Lord calls me to preach it to. I want to tell people about Christmas in July.

The gift of salvation is not a what. It’s a who. I want to beckon you, call you, beg you, plead with you, treasure the name Jesus. Because it’s the name by which you’re saved. Treasure the life of Christ for you participate in it and are made holy and right and are set free. By grace, God has given us Himself. And I just want to close by reading a poem I found from D.A. Carson. He’s a theologian and writer. I really liked it. It says, Before there was a universe, before a star or planet, when time had still not yet begun, I scarcely understand it. The eternal word was with His God. God’s very self-expression. The eternal word was God Himself. And God had planned redemption. The word became our flesh and blood, the stuff of His creation. The word was God. The word was flesh. Astounding incarnation. But when He came to visit us, we did not recognize Him. Although we owed Him everything, we haughtily despised Him. In days gone by, God showed Himself in grace and truth to Moses. But in the word of God made flesh, their climax He discloses. For grace and truth and fullness came and showed the Father’s glory. When Jesus dawned our flesh and died, this is the gospel story. All who delighted in His name, all those who did receive Him, all who by grace were born of God, all who in truth believed Him, to them He gave a stunning right to become God’s dear children. Here will I stay in grateful trust. Here will I fix my vision. Before there was a universe, before a star or planet, when time had still not yet begun, I scarcely understand it. The eternal word was with His God, God’s very self-expression. The eternal word was God Himself and God had planned redemption. Let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for life. And thank you for life abundantly. It is found nowhere else and found in no one else beside your Son, Jesus. Lord, let us come, let us flee, let us run to your Son this Christmas season and wonder at His great humility, though He was king, though He was worshipped by all the heavenly hosts, He became a baby. He became a baby, a vulnerable child to save sinners like us, to make us new.

So we just want to worship and just give you our heart’s praise and Father, Son, Holy Spirit, say we delight in you and we want to live lives that reflect those who truly walk in the life of Christ. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.